The medical device industry is but one example of an industry where the products or devices produced and used therein requires the products to exhibit a diverse array of properties and/or capabilities. Transluminal medical devices are one example. Such devices are typically introduced into the vasculature of a patient at a point remote from the treatment site, a procedure that can be uncomfortable for the patient. In order to perform acceptably, and to minimize the trauma to the patient, transluminal devices typically exhibit diverse, and at times divergent, performance characteristics and perform a wide range of functions.
For example, many such devices desirably exhibit good maneuverability so as to be manipulated to and/or inserted at a location requiring treatment, but yet sufficiently strong in the longitudinal direction so as not to buckle or kink when being so manipulated. In fact, many medical devices require a combination of these, and other, properties such as strength, thermal stability, structural stability, flexibility, opacity, radio-opacity, storage stability, lubricity, stability to sterilization treatment, etc., in order to be effective for their intended purpose. Often medical devices are further desirably biodegradable, capable of delivering therapeutic agents, etc.
Material selection is thus very important to the therapeutic efficacy of many medical devices since the properties of the materials used often dictates the properties and/or capabilities of the overall device. However, the range of properties available from one, or even a combination of, material(s) is often not as broad as would be desired to provide a corresponding breadth of properties or capabilities in medical device applications. As a result, many medical devices need to be manufactured from a combination of materials, processed in a specific manner, or subjected to other treatments, in order to exhibit the desired and/or required characteristics.
Thus, there is a continuing need in the medical device industry to develop or discover additional materials that exhibit the range of properties or capabilities required or desired for a medical device.